"I've never searched for controversy - it's not something I'm interested in generating."

Birthplace

Los Angeles, US

Education

Bennington College, US

Other jobs

Music critic, keyboards player in New Wave bands

Did you know?

Less Than Zero was published while he was still a student.

Critical verdict

His early, showily empty novellas, in which he spoke (or didn't speak) for one of the many generations X, were superseded by the American Psycho controversy/publicity campaign - fading with time and the interesting critical proposition that the antihero doesn't actually rape and mutilate, he merely thinks about it. With Glamorama - more flat-affect high life, designer labels and disgust, but with the addition of an emotional tone and some narrative pace - his star has risen again.

Recommended works

Glamorama, though the force of his satire sometimes overwhelms its object, is the most layered and achieved thing he's written.

Influences

He admits to Hemingway, Don DeLillo ("our greatest living novelist") and Joan Didion ("I completely ripped her off in Less Than Zero"), and says Ulysses was "the most thrilling thing I've ever read".

Now read on

Originally seen as part of the 80s literary bratpack that included Tama Janovitz and Jay McInerney, he shares some territory with Will Self (Ellis finds his work "a little too brainy", but says the man himself is "great fun on a night out").

Adaptations

Brat-pack uber-novel Less Than Zero was unsatisfyingly adapted in 1987 with a brat-pack cast; American Psycho (dir Mary Harron) was released in 2000 to mostly positive reviews, with Christian Bale especially lauded for his intelligent performance as Patrick Bateman.